AN NCS PREMIERE: ONE OF NINE — “THE SILENCE OF HEAVEN”

“Listen. Here is One of Nine. An image Shrouded in Unlight.
A sound Enchanted by the Mother of Strangling Doom.
One of Nine. Unfaced, & unlit. They present here their efforts, a collection of tales. An offering to the perilous realm and the Great Tyrant of Utumno!”

That is how the Wolves of Hades label introduces an album named Eternal Sorcery by the mysterious black metal collective who call themselves One of Nine. They also characterize it as “a vortex of Black Medieval Sorrow”.

What this means is revealed in part through the album track we’re premiering today in advance of the record’s release on October 27th: “The Silence of Heaven“.

We don’t know who is in this band or their location. Obviously, this is a group who want their music to speak for them without the possible distractions of such information. What does it communicate?

You might get some clue from the cover art, a striking portrait of an imposing, cold, ancient edifice over which a demonic creature presides. Storm clouds shroud it, but within its blackness seems to be another world.

In the song we’re presenting today the music itself seems otherworldly and imposing in its towering darkness. But you’ll quickly discover that it’s also a ferocious assault, not least because of the vicious possession of the screamed vocals and the ruthless hammering of the drums.

The riffing swirls and sears, immersing the senses in consuming swaths of blazing and roiling sound. The drums shift, not only racing in a fury but also stomping and becoming feral. Yet it’s the high trill and riotous turmoil of the guitars that dominates (along with those rabid vocals), breathlessly sweeping the listener high and far.

The elegant acoustic finale comes as a surprise, but the reverberations of the somber strings and the backing sonic shimmers sound just as unearthly, and just as time-traveling, as the scary and scintillating storms that precede it.

 

 

We’ll also share the album’s first single, “Mother of Shadows“, a frightening invocation of the gloomweaver Ungoliant. Like the song you just heard, this one takes the breath away, and very quickly. The music again operates at a towering scale, like skies on fire.

But as the drums slow, those enveloping sounds become sinister and grim, and the riffing also whirls against a back-beat groove in a way that creates a mood of shattering melancholy, somehow both majestic and anguished. The vocals are never less than unhinged, whether wretched or furious, and they underscore the moods of terrible devastation in the song.

Even just these two songs explain why Wolves of Hades calls the music “a vortex of Black Medieval Sorrow” — and this:

Eternal Sorcery will drag the pitiable listener from the windless Sundering Sea to the Forgotten South of the World, beyond the borders of the sun-lit lands, to that final realm, where the dark nets of enshrouding gloom drape eternal.

Eternal Sorcery will be released on LP, MC, CD, and digital formats, and you can find more info via the links below.

PRE-ORDER:
https://wolvesofhades.bandcamp.com/album/eternal-sorcery
https://www.wolvesofhades.myshopify.com